


these small hours still remain

by tardigradeschool



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Grandpa Merle, Pan - Freeform, Post-Finale, mostly not sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 02:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardigradeschool/pseuds/tardigradeschool
Summary: Merle isn't afraid, not really. But it turns out that being Pan's favorite comes with a few perks anyway.





	these small hours still remain

**Author's Note:**

> title from "little wonders" by rob thomas
> 
> i beseech yall to listen to "the truth is a cave" or "this will end" by the oh hellos while you read this they're both such merle songs

Merle is almost four hundred, and frankly, he’s been expecting death for a while. His kids are tired of the schtick where he calls Kravitz to come take his soul every time he so much he stubs a toe. Kravitz has also gotten tired of it, but whatever. Merle thinks the goof still has some juice left.

Taako’s been around more ever since Magnus died. It’s been over a hundred years, but he still comes over in the summer. Says he likes the beach then. He still acts like Mavis and Mookie’s wacky uncle, even though by elven standards, he’s barely older than they are. Both the kids have a soft spot for him. If Merle’s being honest with himself, that was part of the reason he didn’t introduce the other boys to his kids before the apocalypse; the kids would have liked them better. But Taako and Magnus were his practice kids, so. 

When Merle asks, Kravitz says Taako did this with Magnus too. Hung around more. Before, you know.

“Like one of those cats in a hospital,” Merle muses. Off the shore, Mookie, now a broad and cheerful one hundred and fourteen year old, manages to stand on his surfboard for a whole ten seconds before falling off again. Taako, submerged in water up to his waist, applauds him.

Kravitz gives him a look. “Or maybe he just wants to spend time with you.” Not that Taako would say it, he doesn’t add. 

“Oh,” Merle says. “Huh, maybe.” He leans back in his chair and lights a pipe. People stopped giving him shit for it after he turned three hundred and fifty, and Merle sure isn’t gonna complain. “Any idea how long I got left on the clock?”

“Even if I did,” Kravitz says, aiming for stern and landing on fond, “I couldn’t tell you. Why don’t you ask Pan? He’d know better than me.”

“Eh, I don’t want to bother him too much,” Merle says. “He’s got stuff to do. Gardens, forests, you know.”

Kravitz shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says. He pushes himself out of his chair to go help Taako steady Mookie’s surfboard. Taako startles when Kravitz wades up behind him in the water, then laughs a little and leans up to kiss him. Taako, who is not even middle-aged. Taako, who barely looks older than he did when Merle met him in that IPRE meeting room. Taako, who will watch Merle’s children die.

It isn’t jealousy, what Merle’s feeling. He thinks he might feel sorry for him.

 

Merle’s only regret -- well, not his only regret, but he doesn’t believe on dwelling in the past -- is that he dies before Mavis’s wife has the baby. The two of them have one kid already, a wide-grinned little girl that’s already toddling, but goddamn it, Merle really wanted to see the other one before he left.

“Do you think maybe you could sneak me out for a visit?” Merle asks, tugging on Lup’s sleeve. “I know it’s against the rules, but just to see? I wouldn’t say anything.”

“I’ll bring you pictures,” Lup tries.

“S’not the same,” Merle says, slouching in his seat.

“Merle, I can’t just -- hold on.” She puts a hand to her fantasy earpiece. There is a long pause. She’s turned partly away from him, but he thinks he sees the edge of a smile on her face before she turns back to him. “Okay,” she says slowly. “Yes, I can do that.”

“Am I in trouble?” Merle asks.

“For once, no,” Lup tells him. “Hang on, this might feel a little rocky, but we need to get you back in there. Just for a second.”

“In there?” Merle says incredulously, pointing at the body he’s just vacated. 

“Just for a second,” Lup repeats. Her smile is unrestrained now. “Special orders. Trust me.” She takes Merle’s hand and helps him back in. 

On the prime material plane, Merle’s eyes open. 

“The fuck?” Mookie says. “Dad, r’you a god? Does that make me one too?”

“Dad?” Mavis asks cautiously, which is probably an appropriate reaction for when your father dies and comes back to life a minute later.

“I got no idea,” Merle starts to say, and then he feels something warm emanating from his hand. The bark covering it is creeping up his arm. And the hand is getting bigger. “Oh. Huh. You might want to back up, kids.”

He hasn’t had a real conversation with Pan in years. This isn’t exactly like that, but it feels similar. And Merle isn’t afraid. The bark is at his shoulder, but it feels like he’s dipping his arm in warm water. 

Mookie has taken his advice and backed up to the edge of the room. Mavis, though, comes closer and puts a hand on his arm. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?” she asks. She’s always been stoic, ever since she was a kid, but he can see the hint of tears at the corners of her eyes.

“Not a bit, sweetpea,” Merle says. The bark crackles across his chest, a little faster now. The arm that was already covered is thicker now, fingers less recognizable as fingers, twisting around the bed and up the wall. They aren’t bad last words, Merle thinks as the bark spreads down his body, to his legs and feet and other arm. Then the ceiling above him cracks; one of his branch-fingers has broken through it. 

“Ah, shit, I fixed that ceiling five years ago. Figures,” Merle says, and just as he realizes that his nice last words are no longer his last, everything fades out.

 

“Have the extra diapers?” Carol asks.

“Got ‘em,” Mavis says, adjusting the straps on the sling she’s wearing. Her second child peers up at her, stubby fingers reaching up to tug on her beard. She’s due for a trim, but that kind of thing tends to go out the window in the first few months of having a baby. She reaches down and takes the (slightly sticky) hand of her other kid. “Excited to see Grandpa again?”

“He doesn’t tell me stories anymore,” Gwen whines.

“That’s true,” Mavis says. “But you can still talk to him.” Gwen loves talking, and this does perk her up a little. Carol catches Mavis’s eye and smiles. Mavis is suddenly fervently grateful that she ended up with someone who doesn’t mind going to visit her tree father every once in a while, even though it’s a hassle with a baby and a small kid.

They get to the house a little before lunch, Mavis already mentally calculating how many snacks it will take to hold Gwen off until the early afternoon. The baby is asleep for now, lulled by the closeness to one of her parents. The top of the tree sticks straight up through the roof of the house, shadowing the whole building, visible from impressively far away. Mavis wonders absently if it’s getting bigger.

Gwen squirms out of her hold when they get in the door, running straight into the house. Carol follows her. There are roots in the floor where there weren’t before, and Mavis makes sure to step over them carefully. She isn’t certain whether her father can feel pain like this, but there’s no reason to take chances. Pausing to take her scarf off, Mavis looks down and realizes that tendrils have wrapped eagerly around her feet, though they reluctantly let go when she goes to lift her foot. Mavis chuckles. “Be there in a sec, I promise.”

When Mavis reaches the trunk of the tree, Gwen is already cozied up against it, feet in Carol’s lap, talking animatedly about a caterpillar she found last week. The baby stirs against Mavis.

As Mavis gets closer, something extends from the tree, like a ledge. It has curved edges to create a sort of hollow, and the inside of it is covered with soft moss. “Oh,” Mavis says. “Okay. I figured you would want to.”

Carefully, she lifts her son out of his sling and settles him in the makeshift cradle. It adjusts around him until it’s the perfect size. Mavis smiles. 

“Honey?” Carol says. Mavis turns around and realizes that there are new flowers blooming over every visible inch of the tree. Gwen buries her face in one, delighted. Mavis laughs. “Never could stick to one species of plant, could you, Dad?” There are theological debates now about the kind of tree this is, or whether there’s any significance to fruit it bears or the nuts that fall from it. Mavis knows the truth; her father couldn’t identify different trees to save his life.

The cradle sinks into the tree an inch, as though Merle is drawing his grandson closer. Mavis lays a hand on the tree trunk, which she would swear is thicker than the last time she visited -- probably fifteen feet in diameter. More moss spreads from where she put her hand down. 

“I know it’s not really you,” Mavis says softly. “Or, it is you, but not all of you. That’s what Lup said, that you were in the Ethereal Plane, but a part of you was still here.”

Lup had paused, when she said that, then added,  _ Non-figuratively _ .  _ This is literally a part of him. He can literally hear you. Pan does this sometimes, with his most devoted followers.  _

A vine dangles over the crib and the baby grabs at it curiously.

“Everything good over there?” Carol calls. 

“Yeah,” Mavis says. “Dad just wanted to hold the baby.”

**Author's Note:**

> in terms of age, i figured merle to be in his late middle age during the balance arc and taako to be the elf equivalent of his thirties (but elves are in their thirties for a long time)
> 
> anyway find me at mcgonagollygee on tumblr crying about merle


End file.
